FZ-55, a relative of the FZ-35S

[bitrate]

I thought I would share some pics of something REALLY obscure in my 3DO collection. I did a little searching around on the net and only found one distinct picture of this item and extremely little information.

Some of us are familiar with the FZ-35S - LINK

The FZ-35S is basically one of the few products that made it out the door with M2 technology. So, you could call it a distant relative of the 3DO console. So... I guess you could call the FZ-55 a relative of a distant relative of the 3DO console.

Like the FZ-35S, the FZ-55 is endowed with the M2 technology. This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I first heard about M2 back in the 90's



Those of us familiar with the FZ-35S should recognise the text displayed in the immediate two images...















Here are the all too familiar PowerPC IC's...

[pitsunami]

I cant believe my eyes,thank you so much for sharing.

[3DOKid]

It's like a 3DO laptop.

What was it for?

3DO Kid.

[Trev]

?????

[3DOKid]

Two serial ports? And what looks like a DIN socket. And that's a PCMCIA socket in the front? So what - you can connect 3 modems too it? it's a poor War Dialer for hackers? It must have been for a demo pod or something. I don't get it.

[bitrate]

This unit, like the FZ-35S, does not support 3DO games. In fact, this unit is almost exactly like the FZ-35S on a smaller scale.

This unit is what the M2 technology finally showed up as. It was to be used in various kiosk situations much like the FZ-35S. If you have heard the stories of the M2 technology finding its way into ATM's and Japanese coffee vending machines, that is the type of functionality this unit provided.

[3DOKid]

That's really sad. And I'm not being sarcastic. It's going to be one hell of a coffee machine though surely? 2 PPC chips. Does it have Brazil phoning AI to order the freshest brew or something? How many decisions does a coffee machine have to make? A single processor would do just as good of a job surely? Jeez, a z80 would be capable of the same job.

The serial interface are for connecting to the wider coffee machine then I guess. Nuts. Grinder. Water. Thermostat. Milk and frother. Hmmm. 2 PPC chips?

unless of cause it was to have the ultimate in 3D coffee machine GUI's.

Wow.

[bitrate]

I know... its gross overkill when you compare the technology with the applications.
The grand intention though, was to have a highly interactive machine where the user can design a house, play a game, order a car, make coffee, etc, etc.
In terms of game playing on this unit, there is a member on this forum by the name of WindowsKiller who has done some work on enabling the FZ-35S to play the Konami arcarde games that were all M2 based games. If any success is ever achieved in the porting of those games, it might be possible to play them on this unit as well. Although I haven't taken a close enough look at this unit to confirm this.
I'm going to try to the get the car dealership software that runs on the FZ-35S to run on this unit when I get a little free time and I'll post some pics when it is successful.

[Windows Killer]

I'm going to try to the get the car dealership software that runs on the FZ-35S to run on this unit when I get a little free time and I'll post some pics when it is successful.

It will work, no doubt (unless there's no hard disk). There's almost no difference in the hardware, they even share the same bios.

[bitrate]

Yep, there is a hard disk, but it is under the main board and I got lazy and didn't take the main board out because of a bunch of tabs and screws that hold it in place.
I'll give the software a shot as soon as I dig it out.